Beton™ font family

The Bauer Typefoundry first released the Beton family of types in 1936. Created by the German type designer Heinrich Jost, the present digital version of the Beton family consists of six slab serif typefaces. First developed during the early 1800s, by the 1930s slab serif faces had become one of many stock styles of type developed by foundries all over the world. Because of their distance from pen-drawn forms and their industrial appearance, they were seen as modern" typefaces (their serifs kept them from being too modern). Faces like Beton were interesting contemporary competitors with more thoroughly modern experiments like Basic Commercial and Futura.

The first slab serif typefaces, like Adrian Frutiger's revival Egyptienne F were outgrowths of didone style text faces (e.g., Walbaum). As newspapers and advertising grew in importance in the western world (especially in "Wild West" America), type founders and printers began to create bigger, bolder typefaces, which would set large headlines apart from text, and each other. Through display tactics, businesses and industry could begin to visually differentiate their products from one another. This craze eventually led to the development of monster sized wood type, among other things.

By the 20th Century, the typographic establishment had begun to tame, categorize, and codify 19th Century type styles. It was in the wake of this environment that Jost developed Beton. Jost, one of Bauer's in-house designers, was also the creator of the prolific Bauer Bodoni, which is widely regarded as one of the best Bodoni revivals ever cast.

The Beton family is a type "family" in a pre-1950s sense of the word. Although six styles of type are available, only four of them fit in logical progression with each other (Beton Light, Beton Demi Bold, Beton Bold, and Beton Extra Bold). The other two members of the family, Beton Bold Condensed and Beton Bold Compressed, are more like distant cousins. They function better as single headlines to text set in Beton Light or Beton Demi Bold, or as companions to totally separate typefaces.

Beton Light and Beton Demi Bold are well suited for setting book text, and other running text applications that require sizes under 12 point. Beton Bold and Beton Bold Condensed may be used for shorter lengths of texts at 12 point or above, as well as for headlines. Beton Extra Bold> and Beton Bold Compressed are best left to headlines and display purposes alone, although they could make a mean logo in the right hands.

Beton is very similar to another 1930s German slab serif family, Memphis."

Beton Bold Compressed

Desktop fonts are designed to
be installed on a computer for
use with applications.
Licensed per computer.

Web fonts are used with the CSS
@font-face rule. They are licensed
for a set number of page views with
no time limitation.

Mobile App Fonts can be embedded in your mobile application. Each app requires a separate license. The license is based on the number of app installations.

Electronic Publication Fonts can be
embedded in an eBook, eMagazine or
eNewspaper. Fonts are licensed per issue.

Server fonts can be installed on
a server and e.g. used by automated
processes to create items.
A license is per server core CPU per year.

Select the number of computers
on which the font will be installed.

Select the amount of page views
that you can use over time. We’ll let
you know when you’re running low.

Select the number of app
installations you want to license.
Some mobile app fonts allow an
unlimited number of installations. Further information

Select the number of electronic publications
you intend to embed the font in. Each license
is valid for one issue for the life of that issue.

Select the total number of core
CPUs of the servers on which
the font will be installed.
A license has a term of 1 year.

Page views/month: Please select the
number of monthly page views
anticipated. The license has no time
limit and does not need to be replaced.
You only pay for additional page views
if your site gets more traffic than expected.

Please select the desired number of ad impressions. We’ll let
you know when you’re running low.

Fractions

Tag: frac

Function: Replaces figures separated by a slash with 'common' (diagonal) fractions. The user enters 3/4 in a recipe and gets the threequarters fraction.

Standard Ligatures

Tag: liga

Function: Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph which is preferred for typographic purposes. This feature covers the ligatures which the designer/manufacturer judges should be used in normal conditions. The glyph for ffl replaces the sequence of glyphs f f l.

Ordinals

Tag: ordn

Function: Replaces default alphabetic glyphs with the corresponding ordinal forms for use after figures. One exception to the follows-a-figure rule is the numero character (U+2116), which is actually a ligature substitution, but is best accessed through this feature. The user applies this feature to turn 2.o into 2.o (abbreviation for secundo).

Superscript

Tag: sups

Function: Replaces lining or oldstyle figures with superior figures (primarily for footnote indication), and replaces lowercase letters with superior letters (primarily for abbreviated French titles). The application can use this feature to automatically access the superior figures (more legible than scaled figures) for footnotes, or the user can apply it to Mssr to get the classic form.

Discretionary Ligatures

Tag: dlig

Function: Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph which is preferred for typographic purposes. This feature covers those ligatures which may be used for special effect, at the user's preference. The glyph for ct replaces the sequence of glyphs c t, or U+322E (Kanji ligature for "Friday") replaces the sequence U+91D1 U+66DC U+65E5.

These fonts support the Basic Latin character set. Each font is Unicode™ encoded, and available in d

Tag: Basic Latin

Function: These fonts support the Basic Latin character set. Each font is Unicode™ encoded, and available in different formats. Please review the product information for each font to ensure it will meet your requirements.

SkyFonts loading...

Download a free trial

Use this font in your own documents with a free 5 minute trial through SkyFonts. Trials are for evaluation purposes only.
Learn more.

This font is currently not available.

You already tried this font within the last 24 hours or you may have exceeded your daily allowance of trials.
Learn more.